The Saudi decentralized finance (DeFi) company TakaDAO announced two weeks ago that it has attracted a new undisclosed investment from startup accelerator and tree-seed investor Adaverse, known for its activity in the Cardano blockchain ecosystem. This news comes months after TakaDAO announced completing a pre-seed investment round of $1.6 million from several investors.
TakaDAO is a decentralized finance company that offers Sharia-compliant financial products. Their main product today is the TakaTurn app, which allows users to create communal savings circles inspired by the concept of Jamaeeyah in Arab culture, and leverages liquidity provision concepts in DeFi to generate non-usurious returns for users’ savings.
With the new investment, TakaDAO seeks to launch its second product, TakaShure, next summer – a decentralized insurance protocol based on the concept of Takaful in Islamic financial culture, where members of a community contribute set amounts monthly to an insurance pool where they share risks and returns.
TakaDAO is considered one of the first companies exploring the intersection of blockchain, web3 and Islamic finance. Currently, the Islamic finance sector is valued at $2 trillion, and is expected to continue growing at significant rates in coming years due to economic and population growth in Muslim countries.
TakaDAO was founded in 2022 in Singapore by its founders Sharene Lee and Morrad Irsane. The company has a digital community of 17,000 members, and a weekly growth rate of 5%.
TakaDAO is the first web3 investment in Saudi Arabia by Adaverse, which has recently expanded its operations to Riyadh, and plans to invest $10 million in local web3 startups.